Cryogenic air separation systems are known in the art for separating gas mixtures into heavy components and light components, typically oxygen and nitrogen, respectively. The separation process takes place in plants that cool incoming mixed gas streams through heat exchange with other streams (either directly or indirectly) before separating the different components of the mixed gas through mass transfer methods such as rectification, stripping, reflux condensation (dephlegmation), and reboiling. Once separated, the different component streams must then be warmed back to ambient temperature through heat transfer components. Typically, the different warming, cooling and separation steps take place in separate structures, each of which adds to the manufacturing costs.
It is generally desired in the art to improve air separation devices by increasing their efficiency and/or reducing capital costs of the systems. Various air separation systems have been introduced that combine what were traditionally separate structures in order to provide an integrated device. In particular, different heat exchangers for warming or cooling fluid streams, and separation devices for separating out heavy and light components in the streams, may be partially combined in a single heat exchange core to reduce the number of structures needed in an air separation plant.
However, none of the known systems provides a suitable design for fully integrating a number of heat transfer functions with separation systems for simultaneous heat and mass transfer.